Europe’s MiCA Year One — The Numbers, the Winners, the Casualties
One year in, 38 entities licensed, 11 exits, and a stablecoin map that no one predicted.
The first full year of MiCA — Markets in Crypto-Assets, the EU's comprehensive crypto framework — wrapped at the end of April. The headline numbers: 38 entities licensed under MiCA Title V (CASPs), 11 entities that either exited the EU or sold their permissions to a larger incumbent, and two stablecoin issuers operating under the EMI route who effectively rewrote the European stablecoin map.
The Winners
Three groups won the first year.
- Circle — USDC EUR moved from a fringe product to the dominant euro stablecoin under the rules MiCA imposed on Tether, which exited euro pairs entirely on EU venues in mid-2024.
- Société Générale's Forge — The bank's digital-asset arm got an early MiCA permission and is now the only major European bank issuing its own euro stablecoin under the regime.
- Boutique custodians — Five small German and French custodians picked up institutional flow that the global incumbents either couldn't serve or didn't want to.
The Casualties
Eleven entities either pulled out of EU operations or shrank materially.
- Tether in EUR pairs.
- Smaller US exchanges who decided the compliance cost wasn't worth the volume.
- Several DeFi front-ends that geofenced EU IPs rather than seek a MiCA permission they wouldn't qualify for.
What MiCA 2 Likely Touches
The secondary legislation cycle starts in Q3. Three areas are on the table:
- DeFi. The current MiCA exemption for "fully decentralized" protocols is being narrowed.
- Staking. Treatment of liquid staking tokens as collective investment schemes is the live debate.
- NFTs. The line between "non-fungible" and "mass-produced semi-fungibles" is finally going to get a definition.
European policymakers learned something concrete in MiCA Year One: a clear rulebook, even an imperfect one, beats the patchwork that came before. The question is whether the secondary legislation tightens the screw too far, or just enough.
The Jurisdictional Map
The 2026 regulatory map is more legible than at any point in the cycle. EU has MiCA. UK has FSMA. US still has competing regulators but the temperature has dropped.
What’s in the Secondary Pipeline
- DeFi. The line between non-custodial protocol and regulated service is being redrawn.
- Staking. Treatment of staking yields is a live debate.
- NFTs. Final categorization rules are coming.
- Tokenized securities. The biggest growth area.
Enforcement Trends
Enforcement shifted from existential cases to targeted cases against marketing schemes, fraudulent token launches, and unlicensed venues.
What Builders Should Do
Compliance is a product feature now, not a sunk cost.
Bad regulation kills companies. Good regulation kills bad companies.← Back to BlockArenaX